Nightmares and Kind Words
by RighterWriter
Summary: Stein has a nightmare


Why did she have to get up so early? School didn't start until 7, but she always got up at 4:00. Normally he didn't notice her leave—he was a pretty hard sleeper. In fact, he didn't notice today, either. He slept right through it. Or he tried to, at least.

_He was in a restaurant, having dinner with an old friend whom he didn't recognize the face of, but he was sure it was an old friend. They were just talking. Laughing about the time they… what WERE they doing? He started to get a cold dread. This was already going badly._

I'm dreaming,_ he thought. _And this too weird. Let's at least put a face I recognize on my "friend".

_Now the person had a different face. He was blonde, wearing a red shirt and a big smile, and he was still laughing about… SOMETHING. Stein still didn't recognize him. Not in real life. But in the dream, it was still an old friend._

Damn it, what the hell? I can usually do this.

_The person's face changed to an elderly man in a cardigan. Laughing._

This is getting creepy.

_People started screaming, and the door to the restaurant shattered. A horde of undead shambled through the door, latching on to the patrons and—_

No, damn it. That's not how zombies really work. Not in real life.

_This time, he was standing on a street. He could tell it was the same town he'd just been having dinner in, but he was standing in front of the old cardigan-wearing man's house. He knocked on the door—he had something to deliver to him. No one answered so he went in._

No, don't go in there, this is just going to go badly again.

_He walked up the stairs of the house._

I said no!

_And at the top of the stairs, the old man was waiting, his gruesome arms outstretched and his decaying jaw hanging open—_

No, no, no!

_He was in a courtyard. It was still the same place. He got the feeling that he was standing on a game board. Looking at it, the grass didn't look real—it just looked like the flacking used in tabletop games—and the building looked like painted plastic. The blonde fellow was there again. They went up to the top floor of the building—a tower that looked over the entire… game board. Yes, he saw the edge of it now. As they stood, the tower crumbled and fell into the city, which was now crawling with undead. Several of them set upon him, and he realized that these were the people he had used and killed in his experiments. They were everywhere, grabbing at his clothes and tearing at his limbs and biting at his skull—_

Stein woke up in a sweat, trembling and feeling ill. He pulled the blankets around his shoulders in an attempt to calm his tremors, but it didn't work. The light was on outside, so he checked his watch. 4:12. She was definitely awake. Sighing with relief, he got out of bed and went into the living room. She wasn't there. Probably doing her hair and makeup or something. He went down the hall knocked on the bathroom door.

"Stein?"

"Can I come in?"

"Oh… Sure."

He opened the door. She was still in her pajamas, but her hair was neat and her eyes were made-up like they normally were. She really was an attractive woman; he just wished she didn't wear so much makeup.

"Everything okay?" she asked. He sighed. "What's the matter?"

He pottered blearily over to where she stood and wrapped his arms around her, setting his head on her shoulder. She tentatively returned the hug. He stood there like this for nearly a full minute—her soul wavelength just felt so nice. Finally, though, he let her go and stood back up, planting a kiss on her forehead.

"Okay, now I'm _really_ worried."

"It's nothing."

She looked at him with concern, but he didn't return the gaze, he just shut the toilet lid and sat down on it. With a sigh, he put his head in his hands. He was still shaking, but at least now he felt better. She stared at him a few more seconds, then hesitantly went back to doing her makeup. He would never understand why women felt the need to plaster colored chemicals all over their faces. They even KNEW that the chemicals were dangerous, but they still did it every day. Wake up, makeup, out the door.

He was about to make a snide remark about her makeup, but he didn't really want to this morning. With his head still in his hands, he sighed. "You look nice."

She whirled around to stare at him, shocked. _Geez, you'd think I never say anything nice to her…_ His face didn't change, he just looked up at her evenly.

"Okay, seriously. What's wrong?"

"Aren't I allowed to compliment you?"

"You don't like it that I wear makeup."

"Hm." He sat up, stretched, and shrugged.

She glared at him.

He stared at her.

She glared.

He shrugged.

She frowned.

He shrugged even harder.

"What do you want me to say? That it looks terrible and I wish you would take it off?"

"I want you to tell me what the matter is. You hardly ever hug me, and you only kiss me when something is wrong."

"Do I? Huh." He cranked his screw a few times and sighed. She sighed back at him, then put the finishing touches on her makeup and unfolded the clothes she had set out the night before. Marie knew perfectly well that he never even batted an eyelash when she took off her clothes, so she stripped and then pulled on her shirt and skirt. He watched her with interest, but not THAT kind of interest.

"Are you going to get ready?" she asked.

"Why?"

"It's almost 5:15."

"Exactly."

She smirked and rolled her eyes.

They went into the kitchen together; she was still worried, he could tell. As she made breakfast, he thought about what she'd said: "You only kiss me when something's wrong." He hadn't even noticed. With a sigh, he got up and snuck up behind her, putting his head on her shoulder and staring at the stove. "When is breakfast, wench?" he teased.

"When you sit back down and tell me what's wrong."

"I said it's—"

"I heard you."

"It's just… I had a nightmare, that's all."

She turned around and, before he could move his face away, planted a kiss on his lips. He turned bright red and sat down at the table.

"Sorry, I was aiming for your cheek."

"Hmmg."

She just went back to cooking as though she hadn't just traumatized him. He stared at her back.

"It's 5:20. We're going to be late for school if you keep cooking so slowly. We might get there at 6:00 at this rate, and I just wouldn't be able to show my face there again if we were that late."

She grinned and stuck her tongue out at him. And that was that.


End file.
